Gen 1 8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Gen 1. 15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
Here's a link to Genesis 2
I have read these passages who knows how many times.
A main point to the tale of our eventual Fall. Eat of any tree, eat of the Tree of Life. Do not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Many of the old Bible stories, perhaps especially for a person raised from infancy in the church, have been drilled on with at least one reference a year as a child, makes them less important. Children appear to their parents with coloring pages of a tree with fruit on it.
We are missing a major point of the Old Testament stories. A point that has only recently been made aware to me. I cannot say that I have ever heard in my teen or adult life a lecture on the Garden---much less as I am beginning to want to hear the Word.
Timothy Keller, in his book "Preaching", discusses that Christians need to make a point of studying the Word, all of the Word, as it pertains to Jesus. The Old Testament had one Thing it was pointing to: Christ.
Again, I have never been taught that in my years of church-going and Sunday School/Youth Group lessons. It seemed as if the Old Testament was the Old Testament, the New Testament was the New. The New was about Jesus. The New was very important because it was about Jesus. The Old was the history of the Jewish nation. The Old had some good rules to follow. End of story.
How dreadfully mistaken I (and apparently others!) have been. There are a variety of authors I intend to gather, which Keller recommends, to help me see the connections to Christ in the Old Testament, but if one begins to read the OT with the idea of looking to see what verses show Christ...they begin to jump out at you.
For instance, I suddenly see something when (especially) looking at the two opening sections. Our life in the Garden was perfect. We had no disease, trials, sufferings, and we walked with God. We had one, and only one, command: not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Yet with apparently little encouragement in the next chapter, woman happily eats her piece of fruit, takes it to her husband, and with little encouragement, he happily eats too. (I also now note how easy it is for us to spread our sinful ideas. Terribly, horribly easy. Just a few words and we are willing to accept sin.)
To me this little section shows me that it would not matter how few laws we had; I have heard people be against God because He is "too strict". How, in this time period, is one law too strict? One law. If we could not manage to hold down one law, it shows how enormously we needed Christ to cover our sins. There is no way a human being can obey God without the assistance of Christ's terrible death. We literally nailed Him to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and let His blood rain down on it's roots, while we danced and sang at the bottom.
We need Christ's blood to cover our sins, the sins we made when even one law could not be kept. We need His Spirit to guide us against sins, to understand His Word, to Counsel us in life. We need God. Period. End of story.
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